I changed Mide to Meath (to match Leinster, Munster, Connacht , and Ulster, the 5 first Kingdoms of Ireland) The name is of the same era.

I also swapped the sea connection that connect Mann to Ireland from Ulster to Meath. I did this because it makes Ireland just a little harder to hold (to make it more appropriately worth 5) while not affecting how hard it is to hold Mann.

Does the Giants causeway have any bonus,since both celtic sea and stonehenge are affected.

No not yet, I was wondering about that. Now that there are 3 "special" territories I'm wondering if they should have their own bonus or all be able to attack each other or something. At the very least I could make it a diminishing territory like the Celtic Sea.

Cornwall seems undervalued since both territorys need to be defended from 5 possible attack sites so maybe increasing it to +2 and adding an extra territory could make the bonus more even.

I don't really want to add a territory there but I see what you are saying about it being under valued (what with the 5 territories that attack it) That too is something I shall ponder.

I think this one's already looking even more beautiful than Thysenal... wow

Anyway, now that the territories seem sorted out (love the addition of Stonehenge, btw), I'll come forward with my gameplay fear- this map looks crazily dependent on the drop.

I know that this will be true to an extent with any 'small' map, but here are some that I think may need consideration:

1) The Isle of Mann. Is it possible to start this as neutral? I really hate the open delployment, 1-tert bonus (Free French) in the Gazala map, and that's a decent-sized map where +1 isn't a gamebreaker.

2) Cornwall. Something needs to be done here, I think, especially if the Isle of Mann is left to open deployment. The only thing worse than easily droppable bonuses are imbalanced ones, and Cornwall is way harder to hold than the Isle of Mann, yet has the same measly +1. At the same time, Cornwall is also very likely to be dropped... and +2 is an even bigger gamebreaker. I smell a conundrum, for which I have no easy solution.

3) Celtic Sea/Giants' Causeway/Stonehenge. Stonehenge I would like to see neutral (even just neutral 1), for the same reason as the Isle of Mann but less so b/c it's autodeploy. As for the Celtic Sea, well... for every lucky goon who drops the Isle of Mann, Cornwall or Stonehenge, there will be the jinxed bugger who ends up guaranteed to lose 1 troop before he even gets his first turn. The Giants' Causeway is actually fine as it is, but I list it because it is also a 'special' territory as you put it.

If you were planning on making some regions neutral and I missed it in the thread, I apologize for wasting your time with the above comments. If you do make regions neutral, I would advise low numbers (possibly even 1), otherwise it would shield certain bonus areas too much.

MarshalNey wrote:2) Cornwall. Something needs to be done here, I think, especially if the Isle of Mann is left to open deployment. The only thing worse than easily droppable bonuses are imbalanced ones, and Cornwall is way harder to hold than the Isle of Mann, yet has the same measly +1. At the same time, Cornwall is also very likely to be dropped... and +2 is an even bigger gamebreaker. I smell a conundrum, for which I have no easy solution.

I agree ,something needs to be done about Cornwall and adding an extra territory will make it harder to obtain on the drop.

think this one's already looking even more beautiful than Thysenal... wow

Anyway, now that the territories seem sorted out (love the addition of Stonehenge, btw), I'll come forward with my gameplay fear- this map looks crazily dependent on the drop.

I know that this will be true to an extent with any 'small' map, but here are some that I think may need consideration:

1) The Isle of Mann. Is it possible to start this as neutral? I really hate the open delployment, 1-tert bonus (Free French) in the Gazala map, and that's a decent-sized map where +1 isn't a gamebreaker.

3) Celtic Sea/Giants' Causeway/Stonehenge. Stonehenge I would like to see neutral (even just neutral 1), for the same reason as the Isle of Mann but less so b/c it's autodeploy. As for the Celtic Sea, well... for every lucky goon who drops the Isle of Mann, Cornwall or Stonehenge, there will be the jinxed bugger who ends up guaranteed to lose 1 troop before he even gets his first turn. The Giants' Causeway is actually fine as it is, but I list it because it is also a 'special' territory as you put it.

Ok, so If I'm getting this right you are saying to make Isle of Mann, Stonehenge, and The Celtic Sea all Neutral starts.

With this I agree. I'd say probably just 1 or 2 neutrals each. As it is on an 8 player game (Which I wouldn't recommend for a map this size anyway) Each player starts with 4 territories. by adding any neutrals it means everyone drops down to 3. Therefor I get to add one more neutral territory right? I suggest Powys in Wales. This would prevent someone from getting an automatic drop and I could bump it back up to +3 which I believe it is truly worth, due to it's central location.

MarshalNey wrote: 2) Cornwall. Something needs to be done here, I think, especially if the Isle of Mann is left to open deployment. The only thing worse than easily droppable bonuses are imbalanced ones, and Cornwall is way harder to hold than the Isle of Mann, yet has the same measly +1. At the same time, Cornwall is also very likely to be dropped... and +2 is an even bigger gamebreaker. I smell a conundrum, for which I have no easy solution.

I agree ,something needs to be done about Cornwall and adding an extra territory will make it harder to obtain on the drop.

Yes Cornwall is sort of a "special" bonus and by "special" I kind of mean "Shitty". Which I think is kind of fine, it's not like every bonus has to be a strategic gold mine but here's what I got. Step 1 is Erasing the connection between Leinster and Devon. Step 2 is adding a connection from Domnonee straight to Stonehenge. This will prevent Cornwall from being quite the Crossroads that is now, and will give players another way around it. This will also prevent it from acting as a southern choke point (you can defend 3 bonuses with Celtic sea and Devon). I'm going to try and resist adding a territory to the bonus but I could be convinced with the right argument.

Last edited by The Bison King on Tue Jul 06, 2010 1:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Bison King wrote:Yes Cornwall is sort of a "special" bonus and by "special" I kind of mean "Shitty"...

hee.

Well, if you're williing to make the Isle of Mann, et. al, start neutral, Cornwall isn't so bad in comparison if left to open deployment. So then, it'll be hard to hold and undervalued, but non-neutral which will lessen its fugliness for players.

The Bison King wrote:... here's what I got. Step 1 is Erasing the connection between Leinster and Devon. Step 2 is adding a connection from Domnonee straight to Stonehenge. This will prevent Cornwall from being quite the Crossroads that is now, and will give players another way around it. This will also prevent it from acting as a southern choke point (you can defend 3 bonuses with Celtic sea and Devon).

Sounds good... very good, actually.

The Bison King wrote: I'm going to try and resist adding a territory to the bonus but I could be convinced with the right argument.

1) Now brittany is undervalued with that added connection ,3 territories to defend with only +2 bonus. Moribhan to Asturias seems a unneccessary connection ,if you remove it ,i think that will balance the bonus.

2)

Added Domnonee-Stonehenge connection

This is a good connection as it will stop the south from becoming easily defended from 2 territorys to 3 now.

The number one thing I dislike about this map are all the straight dotted lines. There has to be a better way of making this map and I say this now because I think you should consider something different for the gameplay besides the usual sea connections.

What if you had massive territories, like Celtic Sea, that bordered the celtic land territories, like Munster or what have you... sorry to draw all over you're pretty map, but I think an illustration might show you better what I mean.

The number one thing I dislike about this map are all the straight dotted lines. There has to be a better way of making this map and I say this now because I think you should consider something different for the gameplay besides the usual sea connections.

What if you had massive territories, like Celtic Sea, that bordered the celtic land territories, like Munster or what have you... sorry to draw all over you're pretty map, but I think an illustration might show you better what I mean.

Hmm... I must confess I'm not a very big fan of this suggestion. The Gameplay aspect at least. I will completely agree that the dotted lines are substandard visually and that is something that I will address later in Graphics. I'm putting a lot of thought into what territories attack what territories, and there's been a lot of discussion too. We've been very careful and selective when it comes to picking territory connections. The gigantic sea territories I think take away from that. They make everything too interconnected and I think it really get's away from what this map is all about. The function of the sea territories you suggest is already being filled by territories like the Celtic Sea, Stonehenge, and the Isle of mann, but with those territories I can be a little more reserved about what attacks what, and why.

Besides I really like the web of connections I think it makes the whole thing really interesting and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of others felt the same way. But any way I'll make the actual connections look way cooler later on in graphics don't worry about that

The Bison King wrote:Besides I really like the web of connections I think it makes the whole thing really interesting and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of others felt the same way...

<raises his hand>

I'm not a big fan of seas as normal land regions. It messes up the gameplay, and what's more the open interconnectedness (I'm using a Don King word here) is not even really accurate except in the modern sense. In the time frame this map uses, sea paths were generally very specific, well-charted if possible and hugged the coastline depending on how good one's shipbuilding skills were.

I've never really understood the prejudice against dotted lines (or lines in general) as long as they were clear. I suppose it's an aethetic thing that doesn't offend me in the same way that it does others.

I really hate line connectors and totally find them unclear. It might be a me thing, though cause I've found a couple of people who seem to think they're fine. I can't play something with too many lines, especially without BOB... for some reason I have a decent time on Rt. 66 though.

Anyway, i just thought it looked way ugly and wanted to suggest before gameplay was solidified.

I agree with IH to an extent - personally I have nothing against line connections, they work fine for many maps, but there are just too many lines here.

What you could do is, make the sea territories like in IH:s suggestion, but add port icons to the land territories that border them, and no icons to territories that don't. This way you could keep the gameplay as it is and reduce the cluttering lines.

Of course you would have to keep the lines where two land territories connect directly, but either way this would reduce the amount of lines to a tolerable level.

I don't really see an actual problem here. This is more like a voicing of personal opinions. The connections are fine. No ones given an actual reason to add ports or sea territories other than a visual preference. We can work on the way it looks later. Right now I'm focused on what specific territories connect to which and why. The sea connections I've been using have been working great for this. I have a lot of reasons for what connects to what. Feel free to ask me, I'll back it up. I'm not going to add ports because this map takes place in a time before major cities. Remember we are dealing with tribes with limited sea fairing abilities.